'These stories capture the complexity of women who have both strong passions and huge problems – the most fertile ingredients for exciting fiction.' Bernardine Evaristo, writing in The Guardian.
About the book
In Leone Ross’s luminous collection of short stories – ranging from richly extended stories to intense pieces of flash fiction, set between Jamaica and Britain – anything can happen.
Ross’s setting may be familiar and her characters recognisable, but these stories take a magical/fantastical turn that dramatically transforms the way we see. Other stories draw us straight into the world of the fantastical or the implausible with such meticulous and concrete detail that we accept these as reality: a wife returns from the dead and their marital bickering resumes, a headless girl barely lifts an eyebrow among her school companions, a security guard collects discarded hymens and uncovers a deeper empathy for women.
At the heart of the stories is Leone Ross’s refusal to accept any boundary between the erotic and the most inventive kind of pornography. There is a seriousness here too, in the author’s intentions: a vision of the fluidity of the person, the inequalities of the body politic – from the deaths of black people at the hands of the police, to the deep shifts that signal subtle changes in the nature of capitalism.
This is a richly varied, witty and entertaining collection whose frankness may sometimes tickle, sometimes shock; but always engages the intellect and the heart.
Shortlisted for Salt Publishing's Scott Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.
Featured on BBC R4 A Good Read
Check out Leone's meme series of The Story Behind the Story for some illuminating background information, and her Art of the Sentence – a meme series that uses quotes from the book to provide tips for writers!
There are also some amazing reviews coming in on goodreads, check them out here!
Come Let Us Sing Anyway is available from all your usual booksellers, but if you order direct from the Peepal Tree website Leone gets higher royalties, and more goes back into the pot for publishing fantastic new books like this! Check out our other brand new releases here.
Praise for Leone's writing
“Flawless.” —The Bookseller
“Leone Ross has a powerful style, a taste for complex organisation and a strong imagination...” —World Literature Today
“The finely controlled pacing yields an emotional clout as chilling as the times it evokes. Literate and accomplished.” —Publishers Weekly
“Chillingly real-- raw, naked in its desperation, darting to the edge of sanity and back. Ross has created a powerful story and unforgettable characters.” —Booklist
